The 35-year-old manager said he understood fans’ concerns but assured them that the current board – made up of local businessmen and led by chairman Huw Jenkins – would never jeopardise the club’s future.

He said without new money, the club could make one or two extra acquisitions of the calibre it made in the summer, but ‘nothing major’.

It is understood Noell attended recent Swansea away games where he sat with the club’s hierachy.

Monk added that extra investment was needed to take the club to the next level and get closer to the Premier League’s very best sides.

The Swans are an attractive proposition having made a fantastic start to the season which sees them sixth in the Premier League, level on points with Arsenal and Liverpool.

But Monk said: “We are realistic. Could we stay in the top six all season? Highly likely not. It’s something we’ll be trying to go for, it’s always an ambition for us. The players are very driven as well. They are not here to accept second-best.

“But when it comes to competing, Liverpool for instance on Tuesday and the players that they changed were costing £20m and the changes we made, no disrespect to our players, Jay (Fulton) has come through for pretty much nothing, we had Marvin (Emnes) that we brought for £1.5m.

“This is the world we are living in. If we can get that little bit closer or that little bit further on in our development as a club, it will help even more to compete with those guys.”

In the summer the Swans added signings Bafetimbi Gomis and Lukasz Fabianski from sides that have played in the Champions League in recent seasons in the shape of Arsenal and Lyon.

But they came without transfer fees having run down their contracts and Monk says for the Swans to continue to operate in that market place, they need more purchasing power.

“Bafe was a free, Fabianski was a free,” added Monk.

“Albeit their wages cost money but the reality of it all is it’s nowhere near the amounts other clubs are spending so we do need to think of ways to up our competitiveness without out-stretching ourselves.

“At this moment in time we are at our limit. We could probably afford a couple of more signings but nothing major. To go on to the next level we need to be able to have that extra whatever it is in the bank to be able to invest.

“That’s the reason behind the thinking of getting that investment in.”

Monk, though, said he was not worried by the prospect because he had confidence in the club’s current custodians to safeguard its future after they saved it from going out of business following Tony Petty’s turbulent three-month tenure at the end of 2001.

Asked whether he had spoken to chairman Jenkins about the prospective deal to sell shares, he said: “No, I haven’t actually. Since the Stoke game it has all been football, football, football.

“I’m sure I’ll speak to Huw before the weekend. You have got to trust them. They have made great decisions and done it with the best interests of the club over the last 10 or 11 years.

“You have to trust them that they are doing the same thing here. I can understand fans’ fears in terms of losing control but I don’t think that would ever be the case with those guys involved.

“They have been bitten once a long time ago and they would make sure that never happens to the club again.

“A lot of those times when clubs sell, they are in desperate measures and they haven’t got time to assess who is taking over but we are in a really stable condition and the investment is to make us grow rather than being in a situation where we can’t handle it any more.

“That’s a good position to be in and one they are going to try and take advantage of.”

Monk said allied to the investment was increasing the club’s general commercial dealings – something he said the club knew it could do better at to put it on a better footing.

He added: “The stadium expansion has gone on for a couple of years and the training grounds are coming but need completing. The infrastructure is the biggest thing and I would love to say: ‘give us £100m for players’.

“They are just trying to put the structure of the club commercially right as well because that’s a big thing we are missing out on and it’s putting something in place there to make us as competitive as possible.

“It doesn’t really matter where the money comes from. Obviously you have to vet the people that invest and they will do so with all those processes. You look at Abramovich and the Liverpool owners; they are clever people who haven’t come out of nowhere.

“In an ideal world you would like to have a local billionaire businessman who has supported Swansea all his life but the reality is there is not that investment round here of that amount.

“You have to look further afield and that’s when the foreign investment comes in. As long as they have the right intentions, which I’m sure the board will know about, that’s the main thing.”

Swansea’s board have confirmed early talks are taking place with potential investors but they are yet to name individuals involved.